Why Construction Of Haj House Auditorium Pending For The Last 36 Years ?

MUMBAI : The 21 storeyed Haj House building is incomplete as the work of an air-conditioned auditorium of 700 seating capacity sanctioned in the building plan still remains pending since last 36 years , said a memorandum submitted to the CEO central Haj Committee of India on behalf of Bhindi Bazaar Social Media Forum by senior Urdu journalist Saeed Hameed .

Demand has been made to complete the construction of this auditorium as soon as possible .Various other issues concerning the Haj House and Central Haj Committee has been raised including updating of Haj Committee website and bringing total transparency in the working of Haj Committees .The copy of the memorandum is as following :

To ,

Dr. Maqsood Ahmed Khan,

CEO, Central Haj Committee of India,

Haj House, Mumbai -400 001

Respected Sir,

I, on behalf of our members and office bearers, submit the following for your perusal and necessary action:

HAJ HOUSE AUDITORIUM :The approved original building plan of Haj House had an 800 capacity AC auditorium .Although the present 21 floor Haj House building was opened to use in 1986 , the said 800 seat AC auditorium is yet to be constructed and completed .

Such neglect of Central Haj Committee of not completing the construction of this auditorium is not only the violation of original approved building plan, but it is also huge financial loss for Haj Committee of India as well as socio – cultural loss for local community.

Whenever demand was made in the past, for completion of work of Haj House Auditorium, promises were made to initiate the work soon .But such promises proved wrong as Auditorium still does not exist .Therefore we demand that HCI must begin construction work immediately .Tenders and work orders must be issued at the earliest so that the work of construction of the said Auditorium is completed in a fixed period.

RE-INSTATE PESH IMAM GHULAM HUSSAIN YAHYA :This fact must be in your notice that former Pesh Imam Ghulam Yahya of Haj House Masjid has been acquitted by Bombay High Court recently .He was arrested by ATS in fake terror related case in January 2006 , when he was officiating as official Pesh Imam of Haj House Masjid .After his arrest HCI suspended him and stopped his remuneration .He fought his case in various courts for the last 12 years to prove his innocence .

Although he was acquitted of all charges by trial court in January 2010 only, but ATS and state government appealed against such order in High Court. Bombay High Court recently upheld upheld the acquittal of Maulana Ghulam Hussain Yahya by trial court and rejected the state government’s appeal against this verdict.

We demand that Imam Ghulam Hussain Yahya must be reinstated with retrospective effect as the employee of HCI and Pesh Imam of Haj House Masjid and he must be compensated for the monetary losses he suffered from January 2006 till date .He must get all benefits allowed to HCI employees as per rules.He has been granted justice by High Court , but still he must be compensated by HCI for the injustice done to him by suspension of his services .We demand that justice must be done to him immediately .

TRANSPARENT, ACCOUNTABILITY IN HCI WORKING:We draw your kind attention to the policy of transparency and accountability in governance by Government of India .PM Modi has declared that transparency and accountability are two corner stones of any pro people government .The HCI is a government under taking but it is too far away from transparency in the affairs and lacks accountability to the people ( Pilgrims of Hajj ) on whose money it is being run .

We want to draw your kind attention to the fact that PIOs of HCI have been reprimanded, fined and adversely remarked many time during the past by CIC.This is the proof of lack of transparency in the affairs and matters of HCI.

The CIC in an order dated 26-02.2013 ( vide : File No.CIC/SM/A/2012/001027) also said :”While dealing with such requests from various citizens , we are of the view that it would be in everybody’s interest if the Haj Committee would publish all the information they have on Haj Pilgrimage , year after year , proactively in their own web site so that there would be no need for the people to seek information under RTI .In any case , section 4 of RTI Act expects the public authorities to make such disclosures from time to time .”

The CIC in another order dated 16-03-2017 ( vide No.CIC/KY/A/2016/000350) also observed ,”The Commission observed that the profit and loss account and Balance sheet should be on public domain .” Such observations , remarks , directions and adverse verdicts including fines on PIOs suggest that HCI must work hard towards transparency and accountability and necessary steps must be taken to improve function of HCI to make it people friendly organization accountable to Pilgrims.

We also demand that website must be improved as per various observations and directions of CIC so that maximum information must be available on website, and common people may not resort to RTI.The website must also be updated by latest information.

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